To resize a group that includes image and text, the group must first be converted to an image; alternatively, the group can be ungrouped and text can be be resized separately from the image.It is possible to reduce the decrease in legibility associated with vertical or horizontal downsizing by choosing a font of the appropriate type. This technique is useful to prepare a conclusion slide containing scaled-down visual reminders of what was presented on earlier slides. It is also useful to ease comparison by refreshing people’s memory via a scaled-down version of a previously shown visual.
Do British or american scientist-presenters have the advantage over people for whom English is the second language (ESL)? How does one reduce the impact of one’s accent? How can native English speakers make things difficult for the rest of us not born with English DNA ?
In his marvellous little book, “A Ph.D. Is Not Enough”, solid state physicist Professor Feibelman uses a metaphor near and dear to my heart, that of the fugue.
“But in giving your talk, you should just tell a story. Its structure should be organic, invisible. Your listeners should be propelled from idea to idea with the same sense of inevitability they feel on hearing a Bach fugue.”
Professor Feibelman likes fugues of the musical kind, and to help you understand his point, I ought to explain what he means by “the sense of inevitability”, but without a fugue to listen to, it is an impossible task!
So, given the tremendous restrictions one faces when playing back (and Bach) music on the web, I decided to download the music score of Bizet’s Symphony in C, now in the public domain, and spend the rest of the day to enter the music score inside Logic Pro 8, hire a few Garageband instruments to play the cello, violins, viola, and basson, and give you (a royalty free) 52 seconds of the fugue contained in the second movement of the symphony (adagio). I added the sound of the bell right before the theme of the fugue is played. Listen to the mp3 file, and come back to this text, otherwise, you will not appreciate Professor Feibelman’s “sense of inevitability” comment.
I know, the music sounds robotic without quantization and cheesy without the high end Native-Instruments samples, but the purpose of this piece is not to stop you from attending an orchestral performance of Bizet’s symphony in C, or from buying Charles Munch‘s great rendition of it. The purpose of this piece is to describe the “sense of inevitability”.
The same theme is presented five times in the space of 50 seconds or so. You cannot ignore it, and you cannot forget it. Between each presentation of the theme, the composer uses musical glue to enhance the theme and bring cohesion to the piece. As more and more instruments are added, the music rises to a crescendo. How aptly the metaphor applies to presentations! The theme of your presentation is your title. Each one of your slides refreshes that theme. Your title “organically” moulds the structure of your presentation. From time to time, you may have a transition slide, or you may transition between two slides while the screen behind you is blanked. These transitions are the equivalent to the musical glue the composer adds between the end of the theme’s presentation and its inevitable resurgence in a richer environment.
The fugue inevitably rises to a crescendo as more and more instruments are added. In the fugue metaphor, each slide is an instrument. Your past slides have to be so clear that their theme continues to ring, reverberate in the recesses of your mind, blending harmoniously with your future slides. A fugue becomes more and more complex as the various parts contribute their melody, but not one of these parts disregards the theme of the fugue. They all support and enhance it. The end result is a harmoniously complex musical delight whose greatest strength is the focus of your attention on ONE THEME. May this be true also of all your scientific presentations, and let that theme be your title.
Blaise Pascal, the scientist philosopher, has good advice immediately applicable during a Q&A when faced with a questioner who disagrees with the presenter.
(Thought 9) When one wishes to correct to one’s advantage, and reveal how mistaken someone is, one must observe from which angle that person is looking at things, because, usually, from that angle, things look right, and openly admit this truth, but present the other angle from which the same things now look wrong. The one who is corrected is satisfied for no mistake was made, it was simply a matter of now being aware of other perspectives; One is not angry for not being able to see all angles, but one does not want to be wrong.
During the Q&A, when people claim that your results cannot be observed in their experiments, you, the presenter, should not argue. If they say so, they do not intend to lie, and therefore, it must be true. The difference can often be explained by differences in experimental conditions, equipment, products, formulas; Naturally, there is no time during a short Q&A to review the differences, you make that clear, and you also make clear that your results are repeatable in your lab (they are, aren’t they…); However, offer your help to understand the differences by meeting with the questioner after the talk with a sentence like “I’d be happy to sit with you after the talk and try and see why you cannot get our results”. You may actually learn something interesting! What is important here is the way the audience perceives you: courteous, firm, confident, helpful. Anything else in your response could make you look arrogant, aggressive, discourteous, or not confident in your own results! Let the forceful questioner look arrogant, aggressive, or discourteous; remain the perfect respectful host.
“Keep to time” is good advice, but how? Since slide contents are the greatest time-consuming factor, it makes sense to adjust them until the presenter no longer faces the approaching wall of time with the fear of crashing into it. However, despite the best of intentions and preventive content pruning, the unexpected may bring that dreaded wall closer: an unplanned digression, a forced late start, or an improbable interruption maybe. Is the presenter ready for the unexpected? tools, such as hyperlinks and map slides demonstrated on this video, help the presenter manage time better.
The map slide is best used for long presentations. It helps the audience track your progress while revealing the overall structure of your talk. Hyperlinks are usually invisible doors (buttons, objects linking to other slides in your presentation) that allow the presenter to skip slides without the audience noticing it (thus saving time), or to insert slides on the fly as it were to answer some live questions during the talk (thus adding time).
All tools have intrinsic limitations. Hyperlinks and map slides are no exception.
The map slide (also called outline slide) is not useful in short (10-15 minute) presentations where it is preferable to go straight into your story after the audience has been hooked into it.
Hyperlinks force you to use a presentation remote with embedded mouse because you have to click on them to activate them. Without that, you are on a short leash. You are required to stand close to the lectern where your computer mouse is; this may not be the most advantageous position on the podium to host your guests scientists.
Hyperlinks, if numerous, create a labyrinth where the Minotaur (and you) could easily get lost (remember these links are supposed to be invisible).
You want hyperlinks to remain invisible, so that the audience is not aware of your emergency shortcuts. But this great asset is also a great liability if you do not remember where you have hidden your precious links.To make matters worse, Microsoft PowerPoint hides non-text links in slide creation mode (thankfully, Keynote does not).
A Hyperlink is half witted. Imagine you had to cross a hot stream by jumping from one stepping stone to another. If I were to remove one of the stepping stones, you would not jump. Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac jumps, landing you into hot water regardless (taking you to the wrong slide – the one with the same number as the removed slide). Smarter Apple Keynote ’09 disables the hyperlink.
A Hyperlink is half smart because it keeps pointing to a slide even when you change the order of that slide in your presentation.
Should one present research limitations during the ten minutes of a scientific talk at a conference? Would one be breaching academic honesty and integrity if one did not present them? What has this topic got to do with how well the Q&A goes after the talk?
Find out from our cast of profs, Dr. Sinclair and Dr. Curry, in the profcast segment of this podcast.
The oral presentation surpasses the journal paper in many respects, but surely, one of the key differentiators has to be the use of animation to explain. Finally, a method can come alive on your screen whereas, on paper, it is mummified, embalmed in the sarcophagus of a diagram. Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote enable you to put objects in motion. Trace a linear or curved path and have the object follow that path at a speed, acceleration and deceleration set by you. Decide on an angle and have the object rotate to that angle, fix a size and have the object grow or shrink to that size, set a transparency level and have the object gain opacity or transparency. Combine all these actions together (yes, it takes the skills of a choreographer sometimes), and you can resuscitate the dead… diagram, that is:)
A word of warning: Animations take time to build. It is not unusual to spend an hour on a 30 second animation. But the results are beyond your wildest expectations. You, the presenter, will be a cut above the rest.
Use animations in the following circumstances:
Whenever you feel like using your hands and making gestures to explain something (this does not apply to Italians who feel like that all the time).
Whenever you want to describe the path followed by something in motion (an ion, electron, light, virus,…) through something else (a porous barrier, a membrane, a conductor, an optic fibre,…) over time, or over a number of sequential steps.
Whenever you want to guide the eyes of the audience to a succession of specific places on the screen without using the distracting laser pointer (yes, I don’t like red laser polka dots, and I’ll explain why in another blog entry).
Whenever you want to represent objects whose speed, acceleration, shape, action, colour, or transparency changes when time passes or when these objects interact with other objects.
Whenever else you deem necessary to explain something faster and more clearly, or more interestingly.
Do not use animations in the following circumstances:
You have not yet mastered PowerPoint Motion Path techniques, or Keynote’s actions.
When you have no good reason to use animation (gratuitous), but you just like it, and want to work for Disney or Pixar.
What is the chemistry between the scientist who presents and the audience? When the presenter who precedes you gives a bad presentation, does that affect you? When you work in a field where people are divided into camps of divergent scientific opinions, does that affect you?
Our experts share with you their experience about the people who come to a talk with a bad attitude, or with their own specific agenda.
?
